Be Prepared
Ben Cartwright
came out of the storeroom, shaking his head.
“This won’t do at
all!” he muttered and strode determinedly into the living room of the Ponderosa.
Some writers prefer to describe this as ”the great room”, but it was more like
an experiment in 1950’s open-plan living, if truth be told. And not especially
successful, for it lacked those little touches to make it truly comfortable,
such as a doormat. If nothing else, this would have effectively sopped up the
blood and muck the Cartwrights trod so determinedly home with them on an all
too regular basis. Sometimes Ben wondered why his sons were so accident prone,
but then he supposed it was in their genes. After all, each of their mothers
had died prematurely and dramatically.
The mellow tones
of Adam’s guitar filled the room – the boy certainly had talent, Ben mused, but
both he and the viewers were just a trifle weary of “Early One Morning”.
“Boys!” he
bellowed heartily and was gratified to see all three of them jump guiltily.
“There’s work to be done! Winter is still here and the stores are at an
all-time low.”
“What needs to be
done, Pa?” asked Adam, immediately getting to the crux of the matter, while Joe
and Hoss exchanged looks in the way that younger and irresponsible brothers do.
“We need a cooper
– and urgently!”
Even Adam looked
bemused at this and he raised one eyebrow in a quizzical fashion. Hoss eyed the
contents of the fruit bowl with interest while Joe just wondered why his pants
never seemed to reach down to his ankles. The girl from wardrobe did spend an
inordinate mount of time making sure that the fit around the butt was sheer
perfection, but this meant she was rather pushed for time when it came to small
matter such as length or adding belt loops. Consequently, Joe’s belt was just a
mere appendage, adding an additional frisson of interest when considered in
combination with his gun belt, the angle of which had recently been voted “most
likely to send impressionable young ladies into apoplexy.”
“A cooper – to
make barrels!” Ben elaborated. “For the brandy.”
His sons
instantly nodded in agreement. Although unaccountably omitted from the many
episodes showing a Cartwright in extremis, this was an integral part of Ben’s
master plan to ensure his sons reached maturity. The Ponderosa played host to a
whole troop of sturdy
“I’ll get right
onto it,” Adam reassured his father, thus reaffirming his position as the
responsible one.
Hoss was
determined not to remain in the background. “Anything else you need done? How
are the stocks of calves foot jelly?”
As everyone with even
a passing acquaintance of Mrs Beeton will know, calves foot jelly was an
invaluable staple in the care of invalids and it was therefore imperative that
the Ponderosa stored vast quantities of this nutritious foodstuff at all times.
It was terribly convenient that they just happened to be wealthy cattle barons
– but some of the purchasers were slightly bemused to take delivery of
three-legged cows, instead of the normal four-legged variety. Luckily, Hoss was
very handy with wood and whiled away many an idle hour whittling lifelike
(albeit wooden) replacements for the luckless animals. And, as chance would
have it, the Cartwrights just happened to have a rather profitable timber
operation too!
As ever, Joe was
determined not to be left out. “What about flour, sugar and coffee?” he asked
anxiously, for breakfast wouldn’t be the same without Hop Sing’s pancakes and
Cochise couldn’t get going in the morning without his cup of coffee, complete
with two spoons of sugar, just the way Joe took it!
“We can survive
without all those things,” Ben assured his sons. “But the brandy is very
important. We all know that it cures everything, don’t we? Where would you boys
be if I couldn’t offer you a drop of brandy when you’ve been maimed?” He looked
particularly at Joe at this point, since he was by far the most accident prone
of all the sons.
Joe looked
indignant at this point, because he could only remember getting brandy once
when maimed, in The Fighters. There
had been an occasion he’d been offered some other alcohol, but he couldn’t
quite remember what it had been. Some foreign muck, he supposed. It wasn’t
often Pa let him have a drink!
“Just keep Joe
off the polque!” Adam advised. He still hadn’t quite got over the shock of
Joe’s elder half-brother Clay producing this noxious brew in First Born. Especially as they drunk the entire demi-john in one evening,
leaving none for him! As the well-travelled, sophisticated one of the family,
Adam rather resented this oversight.
“I’ll go an’
check up on the extra mattresses, shall I?” Hoss enquired. These were another
staple of fan-fic. Whenever a major accident occurred within driving range of
the Ponderosa, out came the wagon, loaded up with handy mattresses, which
cunningly materialised out of the very ether. In actual fact, they were kept in
the bunk-house, which meant there wasn’t too much space for the actual ranch
hands. But as no more than two or three ever made more than the most casual and
fleeting appearance in the show, this was not a total catastrophe.
Ben nodded his
thanks and sat down in his fireside chair, as Hop Sing popped out of the
kitchen. Quite how he kept warm and cosy while wearing only light silk garments
was anyone’s guess.
“I’ll start
hemming up some extra cloths, for mopping down fevered bodies, shall I?” he
enquired, giving Joe a penetrating look. He did seem to develop a dramatic and
life-threatening temperature whenever a bullet came within 6 feet of him.
“Best make sure
we’ve got enough chamber pots too,” sighed Ben. He’d ordered a new batch in
fuzzy red transfer print, to match the dining-room china.
Hop Sing nodded
happily and sloped off back to the kitchen, humming the Eton Boating Song under
his breath.
Paw bear shuffled
forward and handed Ben a large tub of Doc Martin’s Wonder Salve TM with a
suitably grave gesture. This magnificent remedy surely deserved its own
credits, ensuring that the Cartwrights emerged from any mishap without a
scratch on them. Why, even when Adam guddled around in Joe’s shoulder in My
Brother’s Keeper with no more that a potato peeler and a pair of sugar
tongs, the boy was restored to his golden-glory by the very next episode. Paw
was determined to ensure the viewers would not be disappointed!
“Where are you
going to put all the brandy barrels?” the redhead asked. She wasn’t averse to a
little nip of brandy occasionally, but her usual tipple was red wine, just like
her sister, and Ben wished he’d never shown them where the wine cellar was!
“Are you going to
make a little barrel for fitting around Cochise’ neck?” asked the blonde. “You
know, like the ones the St Bernard’s wear?”
“You could attach
it to a breast plate, or a neck strap,” the redhead informed him knowledgably.
Ben did so hate when she talked about things he didn’t understand.
“I could?” he
asked, confused.
“I don’t think we
need to go to quite that length,” Adam told her.
“You could have
one, too,” the redhead replied earnestly. “After all, Sport does wear that
breast plate.”
Adam could see
numerous advantages in riding a horse with its own built-in liquor supply, so
he readily agreed to kitting Sport out with a brandy barrel too. By mutual
agreement, they decided that Buck normally looked as if he had been
over-indulging in the hard-stuff, so it was probably better not to put
temptation literally under his nose.
“Underwear!” Ben
said suddenly. “We need to make sure you boys have lots of long johns and
undershirts to keep you warm!” He cast a hard look at Joe, who had a tendency
to ride around in his shirt sleeves, while Adam was bundled up in his
custard-coloured coat.
“But not in
girly-pink this time!” pleaded Joe. How embarrassed he was when he realised
he’d been sitting out in the rain, talking to Miss Dobbs in a pale-pink,
long-sleeved undershirt in The Stillness Within. Luckily, they were both
blind at the time…
Adam ignored this
conversation, for he had no need of an undershirt; his lovely furry chest did
that quite well all on its own.
“How about some
nice black leather gloves?” suggested the blonde, twinkling merrily at Joe. His
slender, supple hands looked so divine in those gloves.
“I did like those
gloves you had in The Other Son,” the
redhead remarked. “With the little buckle detail on the cuff. Very fetching.”
She had one of Joe’s hands in hers and was examining his beautiful, clean,
unbitten fingernails with great attention. She had rather a thing about Joe’s
hands.
Joe sighed, for
life was very sweet right then. The blonde had one of his bare feet on her lap
and was wiggling his little curly pink toes back and forwards. She had rather a
thing about his feet. How fortunate that his two favourite girls had different
favourite parts of him to love. How nicely they shared him!
“How about some
new nightshirts?” suggested the blonde, rather absently. “Surely Hoss could do
with one that’s not made from a tablecloth?”
“And that stripy
number you wore in The Spitfire was horrid,” the redhead informed Adam.
“We all make
mistakes,” he replied, stiffly. “And I don’t really need a nightshirt. I can
keep warm quite easily.” The redhead gave him a hard look, as she could never
keep an even body temperature. Paw shot her a smug look, for his shaggy fur
coat kept him beautifully cosy.
Of course, as Joe
spent every third or fourth episode with a nasty maim, which necessitated him
wearing only bandages (much to the viewers’ delight), it was debatable if he
needed too many nightshirts either.
“How about some
new slippers?” mused Ben. “I can’t quite recall where the ones Cousin Clarissa
gave us have gone to.”
Paw and the blonde
exchanged guilty looks, for he had gnawed them to pieces while indulging in a
bout of teething. Not that the Cartwrights had ever been seen in slippers,
generally preferring to accessorise their nightshirts with a pair of cowboy
boots, as seen in Hoss and the Leprechauns. There was something
incredibly alluring about Joe in this garb, thought the sisters.
Ben looked down
at the long list in his hand. This was going to be terribly expensive, he
thought unhappily. Still, there was one good thing – at least he had wisely
insisted that his sons always wore the same outfits and were thus impervious to
any passing fashion trends! And once he’d persuaded Adam to stop wasting good
material by having turn-ups on his jeans, that had been another few pennies saved.
Ben had invested this money in a natty black silk sling, which was passed to
whichever member of the family was maimed at the time. There was even enough
money for him to have a black eye patch made too, which Ben modelled in Her
Brother’s Keeper to great piratical effect. He was unaware that it had
since made its way into Paw’s dressing-up box…
Still, he loved
his boys dearly and it would be worth the money. After all, it was always wise
to be prepared for all eventualities. Especially when one lived on the
Ponderosa, where nothing was quite as it seemed.
Giggly Sisters
Productions
March 2004